nip

• enPR: nĭp, IPA^(key): /nɪp/
• Rhymes: -ɪp

Short for nipperkin, ultimately from Middle Low German nippen or Middle Dutch nipen ("to sip; nip"; > Dutch nippen). Compare also German nippen (“to sip; taste”).

nip (plural nips)

1. A small quantity of something edible or a potable liquor.

   I’ll just take a nip of that cake.

   He had a nip of whiskey.

• nibble (of food)
• see also Thesaurus:drink
• (specifically of alcohol) a little of the creature

Clipping of nipple.

nip (plural nips)

1. (slang, vulgar) A nipple, usually of a woman.

From Middle English nippen, probably a byform of earlier *knippen (suggested by the derivative Middle English knippette (“pincers”)), related to Dutch nijpen, knijpen (“to pinch”), Danish nive (“pinch”); Swedish nypa (“pinch”); Low German knipen; German kneipen and kneifen (“to pinch, cut off, nip”), Old Norse hnippa (“to prod, poke”); Lithuanian knebti.

nip (third-person singular simple present nips, present participle nipping, simple past and past participle nipped)

1. To catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon.
   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, Merlin and Vivien:

     May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell, Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, If I be such a traitress.

2. To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip.
   • 1716, John Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry‎:

     The small shoots ... must be nipt off.

3. To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.
4. To annoy, as by nipping.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene:

     And sharp remorse his heart did prick and nip.

5. To taunt.
6. (Scotland, Northern England) To squeeze or pinch.
7. (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) To steal; especially to cut a purse.
   • 1611, Middleton, Thomas, “The Roaring Girl”, in Bullen, Arthur Henry, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton‎, volume 4, published 1885, Act 5, Scene 1, pages 128–129:

     Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.

   • 1712, Shirley, J., “The Black Procession”, in Farmer, John Stephen, editor, Musa Pedestris‎, verse 4, published 1896, page 38:

     The twelfth is a beau-trap, if a cull he does meet, / He nips all his cole, and turns him into the street.

• (to steal): See Thesaurus:steal

nip (plural nips)

1. A playful bite.

   The puppy gave his owner’s finger a nip.

2. A pinch with the nails or teeth.
3. Briskly cold weather.

   There is a nip in the air. It is nippy outside.

   • 1915, W.S. Maugham, "Of Human Bondage", chapter 118:

     The day had only just broken, and there was a nip in the air; but the sky was cloudless, and the sun was shining yellow.

4. A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching

   the nip of masses of ice.

5. A small cut, or a cutting off the end.
6. (mining) A more or less gradual thinning out of a stratum.
7. A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost.
8. A biting sarcasm; a taunt.
9. (nautical) A short turn in a rope.
10. (papermaking) The place of intersection where one roll touches another
11. (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) A pickpocket.
    • 1977, Gãmini Salgãdo, The Elizabethan Underworld, Folio Society, published 2006, page 27:

      A novice nip, newly arrived in London, went one afternoon to the Red Bull in Bishopsgate, an inn converted to a playhouse.

• (pickpocket): See Thesaurus:pickpocket

• nip and tuck
• nip in the bud

nip (third-person singular simple present nips, present participle nipping, simple past and past participle nipped)

1. (informal) To make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip.

   Why don’t you nip down to the grocer’s for some milk?

• NPI, PIN, pin

From Proto-Albanian *nepō, from Proto-Indo-European *népōts (“grandson, nephew”). Cognate to Latin nepos (“grandson”) and Sanskrit नपात् (nápat-, “grandson”). Reinforcement/influence or a borrowing from Latin is also possible.[1]

nip m (indefinite plural nipër, definite singular nipi, definite plural nipërt)

1. nephew
2. grandson

• nipash, nipçe, nipëri, nipoll

• mbesë

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nip

1. first-person singular present indicative of nippen
2. imperative of nippen

• pin